A Bitcoin fork associated with BIP-110 has faltered, with 99.85% of the network’s hashpower remaining on Bitcoin’s main chain, according to a report originally published by CCN.com. The result indicates that only a very small share of mining power was directed toward the alternative chain tied to the proposal.
Bitcoin Improvement Proposals, or BIPs, are formal documents used to suggest changes to Bitcoin’s software, rules or processes. A fork can occur when participants run software that follows different rules, creating a separate chain if there is sufficient support from miners, nodes, users and other ecosystem participants.
Hashpower refers to the computing power miners devote to securing and producing blocks on a proof-of-work network. Concentration of 99.85% of hashpower on the main chain signals that miners overwhelmingly continued to support Bitcoin’s existing chain rather than the BIP-110 fork. In Bitcoin, broad network adoption is generally important for a competing chain to establish lasting activity and security.
